• The US Navy is deploying two UAV interceptors to defend its aircraft carriers from drones.
• Anduril's Roadrunner-M and Raytheon's Coyote are set to launch from destroyers.
• The move could solve the "cost-curve" problem of firing costly missiles to down cheap drones.

The US Navy is arming its warships with two reusable anti-drone interceptors designed to counter aerial threats at a fraction of the cost of traditional missiles.

Anduril's Roadrunner-M and Raytheon's Coyote Block 2 interceptors will be launched from Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which will accompany the Navy supercarrier USS Gerald R. Ford on its deployment to the Middle East later this year.

Amid the rising aerial threat posed by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, the Roadrunner-M and the Coyote are designed to act as expendable and automated interceptors against other drones. They can be airborne when the strike group is in a threatening area and then assigned to an incoming threat that's detected, cutting the response time.

The autonomous systems are part of the sea service's efforts to address its "cost-curve problem" of spending far more to defend its fleet from hostile threats than adversaries spent to launch them. The missiles are more expensive than much of the Houthi arsenal, but they still substantially reduce the US Navy's cost of self-defense.

Bolstering carrier defenses

Earlier this year, the Ford carrier strike group departed its homeport in Norfolk for a routine training exercise ahead of its potential deployment to the US 5th Fleet.

The composite training unit exercise was adapted to prepare US forces for the drone fight against Houthi drones and missiles in the Red Sea, putting the anti-drone interceptors to the test.

Capt. David Dartez, commander of Carrier Air Wing Eight, told the Norfolk local news station WTKR that a "big example" of the changes includes "a lot of unmanned aircraft and training against those unmanned aircraft."

The anti-drone missile interceptors are designed to act as short-range loitering munitions, capable of targeting drones nearly 10 miles away.

Raytheon Coyote

The Raytheon Coyote Block 2 is an expendable counter-drone aircraft designed for surveillance, electronic warfare, and precision strikes.

The small high-speed drone is estimated to cost about $125,000 per unit. The Coyote launches from a small container and deploys wings; it can operate for up to one hour and carry various payloads.

The Coyote is propelled by a boost rocket motor and a turbine engine, allowing it to "handle reasonably large accelerations during launch, a critical feature for all tube-launch applications," according to Raytheon."

Anduril Roadrunner-M

Anduril founder Palmer Luckey described the Roadrunner-Munition as "somewhere between a reusable missile and a full-scale autonomous aircraft."

The roughly $500,000 Roadrunner-M, the explosive variant of Anduril's reusable autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV), is purpose-built to detect and target aerial threats.

Its twin turbojet engines are capable of vertical take-off and can fast-maneuver to intercept an assigned target, or even circle around until one is acquired and land back on its ship if not.

From land to sea

The US military has already acquired Roadrunner-M and Coyote drones as part of the Pentagon's push for AI-driven ground-based air defense capabilities.

In October, the Defense Department procured over 500 Roadrunner-M interceptors as part of a nearly $250 million contract with Anduril.

The US Army has also integrated the Coyote as a crucial component in its counter-UAS strategy, known as the "Low, slow, small, unmanned aircraft Integrated Defeat System" (LIDS).

"Both these systems were originally designed for use over land; however, the US Navy has tested and demonstrated these systems in the maritime environment," Capt. Ronald Flanders, a spokesman for the Navy's research and acquisition department, told Military.com.

Expendable loitering munitions

The Roadrunner-M and the Coyote are "both specifically designed to go after UAVs," Navy Adm. Daryl Caudle, head of US Fleet Forces Command, told reporters in March.

The anti-drone interceptors add more firepower and magazine capacity to protect high-value naval assets like aircraft carriers without sacrificing larger and more expensive missiles stored in the ship's vertical launchers.

Costing from $125,000 to $500,000 per unit, the drone-killers come at a fraction of the cost of the cheapest interceptors with a similar range currently in use by the Navy.

The Roadrunner-M is just over half the $920,000 cost of the short-range Rolling Airframe Missile, and it only gets more expensive from there. The medium-range Evolved Sea Sparrow Block 2 interceptor costs about $1.5 million per unit, the longer-range SM-2 missiles carry a price tag of about $2 million, and SM-6 missiles cost over $4 million each.

The Navy said in January that nearly 400 munitions, including over 100 SM-2 missiles, 80 SM-6 missiles, and 20 ESSM and SM-3 missiles, had been fired to counter Houthi strikes since October 2023. The Trump administration called off an intensified air war in early May in exchange for a Houthi agreement to cease attacks on shipping.

The Navy's 'cost-curve' problem

Because multimillion-dollar missiles and other expensive weapon systems are often used as counter-drone defense, the Navy is facing mounting pressure to address its so-called "cost-curve problem."

Smaller missiles to counter smaller threats may be only part of a future solution. The UK military is deploying a new laser weapon to four of its ships. Lasers face technical issues at sea but offer the possibility of zapping an unlimited number of threats.

FIRST ON FOX: Dozens of drones that traipsed over Langley Air Force base in late 2023 revealed an astonishing oversight: Military officials did not believe they had the authority to shoot down the unmanned vehicles over the U.S. homeland. 

A new bipartisan bill, known as the COUNTER Act, seeks to rectify that, offering more bases the opportunity to become a "covered facility," or one that has the authority to shoot down drones that encroach on their airspace. 

The new bill has broad bipartisan and bicameral support, giving it a greater chance of becoming law. It’s led by Armed Services Committee members Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., in the Senate, and companion legislation is being introduced by August Pfluger, R-Texas, and Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., in the House. 

Currently, only half of the 360 domestic U.S. bases are considered "covered facilities" that are allowed to engage with unidentified drones. The legislation expands the narrow definition of a covered facility under current statute to allow all military facilities that have a well-defined perimeter to apply for approval that allows them to engage with drones. 

PENTAGON LACKS COUNTER-DRONE PROCEDURE LEADING TO INCURSIONS LIKE AT LANGLEY, EXPERTS SAY

The legislation also stipulates that the secretary of defense delegate authority to combatant commanders to engage drone attacks, cutting down on time to get approval through the chain of command in emergency situations. 

"Leaving American military facilities vulnerable to drone incursions puts our service members, the general public and our national security at risk," Cotton said. 

For more than two weeks in December 2023, a swarm of mystery drones flew into restricted airspace over Langley, home to key national security facilities and the F-22 Raptor stealth fighters. 

Lack of a standard protocol for such incursions left Langley officials unsure of what to do, other than allow the 20-foot-long drones to hover near their classified facilities. 

To this day, the Pentagon has said little about the incidents, other than to confirm that they occurred. Whether it knows where the drones came from or what they were doing is unclear.

"As commercial drones become more commonplace, we must ensure that they are not being used to share sensitive information with our adversaries, to conduct attacks against our service members, or otherwise pose a threat to our national security," Gillibrand said. 

PLANES, STARS AND HOBBYISTS: LAWMAKERS INSIST NOTHING ‘NEFARIOUS’ IS HAPPENING IN NJ SKIES

As defense-minded lawmakers sought more answers, Langley officials referred them to the FBI, who referred them to Northern Command, who referred them to local law enforcement, a congressional source told Fox News Digital last year. 

Gen. Gregory Guillot, chief of Northern Command (NORCOM) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said in February that there were over 350 unauthorized drone detections over military bases last year. 

"The primary threat I see for them in the way they’ve been operating is detection and perhaps surveillance of sensitive capabilities on our installations," he said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. "There were 350 detections reported last year on military installations, and that was 350 over a total of 100 different installations of all types and levels of security."

A surge in mysterious drone activity over New Jersey late last year and early this year prompted mass confusion. 

Guillot said that regulations on UAV countermeasures created "significant vulnerabilities that have been exploited by known and unknown actors."

He advocated for what the new legislation would do: expand Section 130i of Title 10, which pertains to the protection of  "certain facilities and assets from unmanned aircraft."

"I would propose and advocate for expansion of 130i [authorities] to include all military installations, not just covered installations," Guillot said during the hearing. "I’d also like to see the range expanded to slightly beyond the installation, so they don’t have to wait for the threat to get over the installation before they can address it, because many of these systems can use side looking or slant range, and so they could … surveil the base from outside the perimeter. And under the current authorities, we can’t address that."

• The US Army is closely watching drone warfare in Ukraine and the Middle East.
• What it's learning is that drones are becoming deadlier, and the technology is evolving fast.
• A top Army officer outlined some of the ways the US is readying for future fights.

As the US Army closely watches the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, military planners are gathering critical intelligence about drones and how they're being used in combat.

Among the lessons being learned are that drones are fast becoming much deadlier and that US soldiers need to be ready to defend themselves from the evolving threat, an Army officer told Business Insider. And what the world is seeing unfold in conflicts now might be just the beginning.

"We're seeing the technology advance faster," said Col. Glenn Henke, commandant and chief of the Army's Air Defense Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. But it's not just the technology that's advancing; it's how the tech is being employed in combat.

The Ukraine war ushered in a new era of drone warfare that has been unprecedented in scope and scale. Uncrewed systems are used for reconnaissance and strike missions on the ground, in the air, and at sea, and both Kyiv and Moscow are constantly trying to innovate with their technology to stay one step ahead of the enemy.

In the sprawling conflicts in the Middle East, drones have been employed by a number of actors, including the US, Israel, Iran, and Tehran-backed groups across the region, from Lebanon down to Yemen. In the Red Sea, American warships have squared off against attack drones in a sustained first-of-its-kind fight.

"I think we're kind of at the front end of this. So, the evolution of the capability is happening very quickly," Henke said. "The evolution of how it's being employed is happening very quickly. I don't think any of us believe that we've seen the plateauing of what is in the realm of the possible."

"We still think it's sort of ahead of us," he said. "The platforms are becoming much more capable, much more lethal." The defenses that work one day may not be as effective the next.

Henke oversees the Army's Joint C-sUAS (Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft System) University, or JCU, where American servicemembers learn to identify, engage, and defeat hostile drones. It is just one element of the military's broad response to the rising threat of uncrewed systems.

While US troops have not faced the kind of large-scale drone warfare seen in Ukraine, they have gotten a taste of the action. Since October 2023, Iran-backed groups have launched scores of drone attacks against American bases and assets in the Middle East.

The US military has, for the most part, defeated these attacks, but there have been losses. In January 2024, a drone managed to slip past the defenses at Tower 22, a small military outpost in Jordan. It struck the facility, killing three soldiers and wounding dozens more. The deadly attack highlighted the threat these systems pose and the need for greater readiness.

Late last year, the Pentagon unveiled a new counter-drone strategy to meet the challenges presented by its adversaries, who are rapidly developing drone capabilities. "These cheap systems are increasingly changing the battlefield, threatening US installations, and wounding or killing our troops," then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the time.

When it comes to drone defense, Henke said, "one of the enduring lessons that we've seen in many cases is focusing on the command and control aspects of this and bringing in all of this into the single C2."

He explained that the Army is very focused on its next-generation C2 initiative, "which would streamline some of the command and control software that we use" and "allow us to bring everything onto sort of a single pane of glass."

Henke said that the Army is also focused on distributing counter-drone equipment at different levels.

At the division level, for instance, this includes the Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat System, or LIDS. This system comes in fixed and mobile variants and is designed to defend against higher-end drone threats, as opposed to the smaller, quadcopter-style systems running rampant in Ukraine.

There's also an effort to proliferate capabilities down to individual soldiers, squads, and platoons, too. Last year, BI observed US soldiers training with the mobile Smart Shooter and Dronebuster devices, which use kinetic (physical strike) and non-kinetic (electronic warfare) methods to defeat small drones, respectively.

The challenge, though, is that "it's not reasonable for me to figure out what I'm going to buy three years from now, knowing how quickly this technology is moving," Henke said, emphasizing the idea of "flexible funding" to ensure the Army can pivot to procure new capabilities as the drone threat evolves.

By the time you read these words, it's quite possible that Adorama will be out of stock of the new DJI Mavic 4 Pro. But when I wrote them, the US-based retailer was still selling a drone that wasn't supposed to go on sale in the US at all, with roughly 70 left in stock.

This morning, I wrote how DJI was skipping the US with its most advanced drone yet, citing Trump's tariffs among other reasons for the decision. DJI did not send the drone to US reviewers, and it wouldn't provide US prices when we asked.

But Adorama and B&H, two rival camera stores based in New York City, apparently didn't get the message!

Today, they both listed the drone for $2,699 - or $3,549 for the Fly More Kit, or $4,649 for the Creator Combo with the fancy new controller with the folding sticks and swiveling 1600-nit screen, or $1,299 for that controller all by its lonesome. B&H even issued a press release.

B&H is only offering preorders today; I confirmed with Miguel Perez in the store's drone department that "we don't yet have it in stock," and he …

Read the full story at The Verge.

• Cummings Aerospace showed off its Hellhound loitering munition at SOF Week 2025 in Tampa, Florida.
• The system is mostly 3D-printed, can fly at speeds over 375 mph, and is powered by a turbojet engine.
• CEO Sheila Cummings told BI said the drone's design and features make it unique compared to others on the market.

A couple feet long, rounded, relatively lightweight, and easy to make, this exploding drone can fly fast and attaches to a rucksack.

That's the basics of Hellhound, a loitering munition made by Cummings Aerospace based in Huntsville, Alabama. This kind of weapon features characteristics of both missiles and drones, delivering surveillance and strike in a single package.

The Hellhoud recently completed flight tests and a few demonstrations before being submitted to a top US Army drone competition. Earlier in the year, it was tested in the Army's Expeditionary Warrior Experiment 2025.

Loitering munitions are becoming more prolific and playing a role in conflicts like the war in Ukraine. As a turbojet-powered drone, the Hellhound is unlike many other loitering munitions. The top speed is nearly three times faster than the popular Switchblade made by AeroVironment.

Hellhound wrapped up flight tests earlier this year, and the S3 version of it, which Business Insider saw up close at SOF Week 2025 in Tampa, Florida, is in submission for the US Army's Low Altitude Stalking and Striking Ordnance, or LASSO, program.

LASSO requires select companies to build 135 munitions and 35 prototypes immediately. It's a new-start program, the goal of which is to give infantry brigades better stand-off weapons capabilities.

Cummings Aerospace's CEO Sheila Cummings told BI that much of how her company is thinking about the Hellhound has been with modularity, ease of manufacturing, and warfighter feedback in mind. She also said the system is affordable but wouldn't disclose a specific cost or price range.

At first glance, the Hellhound loitering munition, sitting inside its case, looks a bit like a boogie board. Weighing less than 25 pounds, the weapon is fairly lightweight and easy to pick up and carry. There are straps on the bottom that can attach it to a soldier's rucksack, something Cummings said was a key suggestion from soldiers who wanted the system to be as man-portable as possible.

The majority of a Hellhound is 3D printed. Cummings estimated that, depending on the number of printers, they could fully print a Hellhound in a few days at least and a week at most.

Any part that isn't 3D-printed is commercial off-the-shelf, an increasingly important quality for the weapons and systems that the US military acquires as it speeds up the process.

The US military has been pushing for more of its systems, especially the uncrewed weapon systems, to be suitable for production on a large scale, interchangeable capabilities and components, and supply chain flexibility.

There's a growing realization that for future wars, inexpensive, easily made weapons will be needed in mass in a protracted, large-scale conflict against a major rival like China.

A key development of the Ukraine war has been how Ukraine has created an arsenal of cheap drones for surveillance and precision strike. That's something militaries around the world are watching closely given how effective it's been.

"We're really trying to minimize the exquisite, custom products," Cummings told BI, explaining that the Hellhound's payload, too, can be interchanged with different sensors or warheads depending on what the mission requirements are simply by twisting and unlocking the nose.

A defining characteristic of the Hellhound is its turbojet engine. Cummings said it's a differentiator for the system and company as it not only reduces fuel usage but also increases speed. Cummings Aerospace advertises the Hellhound as being able to fly faster than 375 mph with a range of around 25 miles.

The turbojet engine is also a commercially available product, Cummings said. She said the munition's shape, sleek and long, also aids with aerodynamics. Cummings Aerospace has imagined Hellhound swarms in the field providing a mix of intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance and strike.

The focus on loitering munitions — which can, as the name suggests, loiter in an area before diving in to strike a target — comes amid efforts to give troops on the ground stand-off strike capabilities. These weapons have seen widespread use in the war in Ukraine, and Russian loitering munitions, like its Lancet drones and Iranian-made Shaheds, have been high-value targets for Kyiv's forces.

• Ukrainian defense intelligence says it's stripped down a new, drone-launched Russian cruise missile.
• The 'Banderol' missile contains parts from allied countries including the US, Japan, and South Korea, it said.
• The new missile is reported to have been used in attacks on Odesa last month.

Defence Intelligence of Ukraine has published a breakdown of parts inside a new Russian cruise missile, and claims that many originate from countries including the US, Japan, South Korea, and potentially Australia.

This raises questions about Russia's ongoing ability to get around sanctions imposed on it over its invasion of Ukraine.

Little is known in the West about Russia's S8000 "Banderol" cruise missile, which Ukraine says is made by sanctioned company Kronstadt. Reports emerged in Ukrainian media in late April about its use in a bombardment of the region of Odesa, home to a key Ukrainian port.

Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, an influential Ukrainian radiocommunications observer, was among the first to report its use, and speculated that it may be a new type of drone.

It now appears that Ukraine has obtained a version intact enough to be closely examined.

A nimble new missile

Banderol, reportedly meaning "parcel" or "package," has a range of 310 miles and can cruise at speeds of almost 350 mph, according to Ukraine's defense intelligence agency, also known as the GUR.

GUR said it's launched from an Orion drone, and is also being prepped for deployment from a Mi-28N helicopter.

One unique feature, the GUR said, is "its ability to execute tighter turns than other standard Russian cruise missiles" such as the KH-101 or the 3M-14 Kalibr, while still maintaining an effective cruise missile flight trajectory.

It carries a warhead of up to 150kg, per GUR.

Batteries, microchips, and telemetry

Much of its capabilities can be traced back to parts sourced from countries allied with Ukraine, Ukrainian intelligence said.

In a detailed breakdown of components, GUR said it identified batteries from a Japanese company just weeks after Japan expanded export controls to stop the country's lithium-ion batteries from reaching Russia.

It also said it found a servo — an electronic device that controls a motor — from a South Korean company in the missile.

Seoul added dozens of items to its export controls list, including dual-use items, in December, although it is unclear if this covers servo motors.

It's also unclear if these parts were already in Russian possession before the expanded export controls were put in place.

In addition, GUR said that up to 20 microchips originating from the US, Switzerland, Japan, and South Korea were found inside.

A telemetry module — or sensor and transmission device — resembling one made in Australia was also found, although the GUR said it could be a Chinese copy.

The companies named did not immediately respond to Business Insider requests for comment, sent outside working hours.

Countries like the US and Australia have sent Ukraine significant amounts of humanitarian or military aid, and have implemented extensive sanctions and export controls against Russia.

However, reports have found that sanctioned items have made their way into the Russian military ecosystem via third parties.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, some parts of the missile, including chips and a jet engine, also appeared to have come from Chinese sources.

Beijing is ostensibly neutral, but has been accused by the US of covertly supplying Russia with extensive dual-use parts and even weaponry.

Defence Intelligence of Ukraine called on governments and manufacturers in countries allied to Ukraine to tighten their diligence.

Today, DJI is officially announcing the Mavic 4 Pro, which could be the most versatile drone it's ever made. It's the first with a 360-degree rotating gimbal for footage that tilts, rolls, and offers true vertical filming. It's the first Mavic to offer 51 minutes of battery life, tied with the old Mini 3 and close to the longest flight times DJI has achieved. It's the first with a built-in 100-megapixel camera, which can also record 6K/60fps HDR, as part of its triple-camera array.

Another important distinction: it's the first off-the-shelf DJI drone that won't launch in the United States.

Today, it's going on sale in Canada, Mexico, and every other country where DJI sells drones, but the company tells The Verge it has no timeline on bringing it to the US. DJI won't honor its limited warranty if you cross the border to purchase one in Canada or Mexico. It's not even sending the drone to US-based technology reviewers - we don't have one, and we're not sure when we'll get one.

Why is the Chinese drone maker doing this? The company says Trump's tariffs were among the top reasons it chose to abandon a US launch - and there's also the fact that, seven months later, US Customs is …

Read the full story at The Verge.

• AimLock is an aided target recognition technology company founded in 2013.
• Its targeting systems have been applied to everything from rifles to rockets and various drones.
• CEO Bryan Bockman told BI about AimLock's work in the counter-UAS space at SOF Week 2025.

Helping troops armed with rifles, drones, mounted machine guns, and even grenade and rocket launchers identify and lock onto targets more easily — that's the basic mission of US company AimLock, which has been developing automated targeting products for over a decade.

At SOF Week 2025, the company's CEO, Bryan Bockmon, told Business Insider about how the company is now focusing on autonomous weapons systems that may be crucial for future warfare, systems made for defeating drones. Countering drones is an expanding area of research and development, with a lot of work being done in Ukraine, though that isn't the only country where this technology is being developed.

The Ukraine war has shown that electronic warfare like signal jamming and GPS spoofing can be effective when it comes to defeating enemy drones, but having a kinetic option, the ability to shoot it, as a last resort for destroying those systems is essential should other options fail.

And they may fail because some drones, like the fiber-optic drones becoming more common in Ukraine or AI-enabled systems, for instance, are resistant to electronic warfare.

"If that doesn't work," Bockmon said of electronic warfare, then "this is the last line of defense."

Defeating drones

AimLock's autonomous counter-drone systems are made to detect classify, and track uncrewed aerial systems and then decide on the best firing solution for taking them out.

One of the AimLock counter-UAS systems was on display at SOF Week in Tampa, Florida. Bockmon said that the system was invulnerable to signal jamming and other elements of electronic warfare because it relies on visual navigation and autonomous terminal guidance.

"We develop autonomy that's specialized for weapons integration," the CEO said, explaining that the autonomy is in finding targets, aiming, tracking, and engagement, or actually firing the weapon at the target.

What makes AimLock's development approach interesting is that "instead of making specialized systems that then have to be reinvented 10 times over to cover the entire mission need," Bockmon said, it makes "generalized modules that can be adapted across 10 different missions."

So if the warfighter needs a different sensor or weapon system, it can find an AimLock product to match. It reduces the development cycle, the CEO said, lowering costs and simplifying the process.

The company's Core Targeting Module, or CTM, as it's called, is at the heart of AimLock's systems. It combines autonomy and firing and targeting components to improve the speed and precision of weapons from guns to uncrewed systems.

The CTM hardware is, in some cases, just a small black box with a few plug-in outlets on top.

Bockmon said the modularity of it and other weapons systems AimLock makes allows it "to offer new solutions that can adapt at the pace of combat," whether that is a low-intensity fight or a high-intensity great power conflict in remote or contested environments with limited communications.

While the company has been working to refine all of this for years, its current focus is its counter-drone systems.

Counter-drone technology has been growing in importance for years now with electronic warfare, directed energy (lasers), and other developments all aimed at defeating uncrewed systems, but the technology is becoming critical as drones, especially small, inexpensive drones, become more prolific. The Pentagon unveiled its new counter-UAS strategy to address these issues last year, but there's a lot of work to be done to meet the threat.

"We finished our first counter-UAS systems back in 2018," Bockmon explained to BI, "and they had to sit on the shelves for a long time because it was really about how effective will electronic warfare be in the future, and then how quickly will it be defeated." It wasn't clear initially how effective electronic warfare would be, but it's clear now that it's not infallible.

The counter-drone mission was a big topic at SOF Week 2025. Multiple defense industry exhibitors and special operations officials spoke to the growing need for a variety of solutions to defeat hostile drones. The Defense Department has made developing a military-wide strategy for countering drones a top priority.

• I went to the three-day Modern Day Marine expo in Washington, DC.
• The expo, which draws military leaders and defense companies, focuses on the innovations needed to fight future wars.
• Marines spoke candidly about challenges trying to field and integrate new tech throughout units.

I spent three days at the Marines' big annual modern warfare expo in Washington, DC. Drone tech stole the show.

Marines, Pentagon officials, and defense industry executives spoke extensively on panels and in private discussions about the uphill battle of preparing for future warfare, and drones were a hot topic. Marine leaders discussed the difficulties of getting many more drones into the hands of troops and the challenges of adapting to war with these systems.

The Modern Day Marine expo is focused on the innovations Marines need to fight future wars, so it's no surprise that everyone was buzzing about drones this year. These highly versatile machines which can surveil enemies, carry out precision strikes, and more have been redefining contemporary warfare.

Their uses were on display at the "Drone Zone," a section of the expo featuring demos from the Marines' Attack Drone Team. There was also a section devoted to wargaming, another focused on warfighting, and countless booths where companies pitched ideas on what tech Marines might need for future fights.

Game-changing warfare technology

In what was basically a UAS mini-symposium, held in a cluster of quiet rooms in the convention center, about two dozen Marines — from generals to senior enlisted —hashed out what's working and what's not when it comes to drones.

Some expressed concerns about fielding and implementing uncrewed aerial systems within the Corps.

Leaders cited the difficulty of getting drones into the hands of troops due to the slow and complex military acquisition process, as well as tricky procedural and regulatory issues, like deconflicting flight space with the FAA, negotiating on-base training flights for logistics drones, and mitigating risks for civilians on the ground.

I was a little surprised by just how open to reporters like me these intimate panels were and was struck by just how frank Marines were in speaking with me and helping me better understand their challenges.

"We've got to field drones at scale in order to be able to pressurize our training really, to work through some of the real hard problems," said Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson, who oversees the service's Training and Education Command, during a media event.

He added that he expects the service to receive more drones and loitering munitions, or one-way attack drones, over the next year.

The newly established Attack Drone Team is an important part of the Corps' drive to learn from the war in Ukraine and bring small uncrewed systems into missions. The team demonstrated drone capabilities every few hours at MDM; it will serve as a foundation for competitive teams across bases.

Other technology attendees buzzed about at the expo were electronic warfare, virtual training simulators, and the need for quantum communications.

Getting Marines into the fight

Drones are invaluable tools, but they won't be much help if the service can't physically get to conflict zones. That's why an initiative called "3.0 MEU," another timely topic at MDM, is a consistent strategic concern for the Marines' top general.

A MEU, or Marine Expeditionary Unit, is a response force of around 2,200 Marines and sailors who carry out combat missions like amphibious assaults or respond to crises like embassy evacuations.

The Marine Corps term "3.0 MEU" refers to having three groups deployed simultaneously, one from the East Coast, one from the West Coast, and one from a US base in Japan, plus enough ships to have some preparing for deployments, with plans for others to be undergoing intense maintenance cycles.

Long-standing concerns about Navy ship readiness mean that having three groups of three ships deployed with embarked MEUs, with others in training pipelines and maintenance, is really still just a goal for now.

"This is about more than ships, it's about deterrence and denial," Marine Corps Commandant Eric Smith said. "That is why the 3.0 ARG MEU matters; it gives our leaders options." (ARG refers to the naval warship groups known as Amphibious Ready Groups).

The Navy operates and maintains the ships that Marines deploy on. But its fleet has been forced to contend with overwhelming maintenance and repair backlogs. The bedrock of American naval power, the US shipbuilding industry, has been plagued with troubles, too.

With the state of the fleet, there are concerns that it isn't sufficiently prepared for emergencies.

"There's a saying that wars are a come-as-you-are game," said Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told Military.com last year on the impact of dismal ship readiness for Marines. "Well, this is where we are. And there is simply no immediate fix."

Taking care of Marines by fixing their housing

Maintaining a mission-ready force requires upkeep of the facilities that troops live in to ensure a certain quality of life.

Renovating barracks, the military equivalent of dormitories, was another important topic at the MDM expo. Barracks across the DoD have deteriorated due to insufficient maintenance, sometimes resulting in mold, water issues, and poor ventilation.

The issue has been exacerbated by decades of war in the Middle East and is one that the lowest, unmarried enlisted ranks deal with regularly.

Now, Marine leaders are trying to boost barracks renovations, which they also hope can help increase force retention. "Barracks 2030" is the Corps' refurbishment answer. But it comes with a steep price tag, nearly $11 billion through 2037.

"The idea is not to fix it and forget it," Lt. Gen. James Adams, Deputy Commandant for Programs and Resources, said of the initiative during a panel on the topic. He added that the service "got ourselves into the position we're in now" by neglecting maintenance.

But funding for Barracks 2030 hinges on Congress, and if lawmakers don't elect to fund the overhaul, it's likely to face painful delays. So it is getting more attention.

• Western militaries are trying to develop drones capable of operating in the Arctic.
• Tough weather conditions can impact a drone's batteries and navigation systems.
• There's growing competition in the region between Western countries, Russia, and China.

Drones are transforming warfare, and Western militaries are now in an intensifying race to develop models capable of operating in one of the harshest environments on Earth: the Arctic.

NATO countries are fast discovering the potential, as well as limits, of drones in the Arctic, where geopolitical competition is intensifying.

Russia and China have increased their military presence in the region, and the Pentagon said last year it will be relying more on unmanned technologies to monitor regional threats.

Military analysts told Business Insider that drones could be crucial in any military confrontation in the region.

However, there are major obstacles to deploying the technology at scale in an area where winter temperatures can drop to -40 degrees.

A new race for Arctic dominance

In Ukraine, drones, both aerial and naval, have been heavily used for surveillance as well as being fitted with explosives to strike targets.

The challenge of using drones in the Arctic comes down to the region's "harsh environment and its lack of connectivity," Nicolas Jouan, a defence and security analyst at RAND Europe, told BI.

Most Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs, are powered by batteries, which are badly affected by cold weather, he said.

Another issue is communication, with most drones directed by controllers using GPS signals. Satellites, though, can provide only "reduced and unreliable" GPS coverage in the Arctic, Jouan added.

In late April, the UK's 30 Commando Information Exploitation Group said it had been testing the limits of drone technology in extreme cold weather training in Norway, as well as testing new models there.

Around the same time, Col. Joshua Glonek, the commander of the US 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division, told reporters that during recent extreme cold-weather training in Germany, drone operations were severely impacted.

"What we found was battery life was significantly degraded in the cold and affected the flight time and the ability of us to employ some of our drones," he said.

Zak Kallenborn, a drone warfare analyst, told BI that the commercial drones that have become ubiquitous in the war in Ukraine struggle to handle the cold.

"Some small drones have been developed to handle cold weather conditions, but I don't know if they can handle as cold as the Arctic," he said.

Russia's advantage

Gregory Falco, an assistant professor at the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University, told BI that the systems used by drones to collect data, such as cameras and lidar — which uses lasers to register distance and chart territory — can also be affected by adverse weather.

The "biggest challenge for developing drones for Arctic warfare is the sensing in a heavily denied environment," he said.

Complicating the situation, at least for Western countries, is the fact that Russia appears to have a drone technology advantage in the region.

The Russian military has deployed UAV models, including the Orlan-10 and Inokhodets, in the Arctic, and is developing a specialized combat drone, the S-70 Okhotnik.

The S-70 is a plane-sized drone that can be deployed for attack missions or surveillance. It has reportedly been tested in Arctic conditions, though its technology is a closely guarded secret; Russia shot one down in 2024 to stop it falling into Ukrainian hands.

Working together

The fears are that Russia could use its Arctic drone strength to expand its regional power.

James Patton Rogers, a drone expert at Cornell University, told Reuters in January that Russia would likely soon be able to monitor the North Sea route, connecting Europe and Asia, with drones.

"We're moving towards a point where Russia will not only have unarmed surveillance drone systems along the Northern Sea Route, but potentially armed systems that are constantly patrolling those areas," he said.

In the race to boost their presence in the Arctic, and integrate new drone technologies, some Western countries are cooperating closely together.

In May 2024, Denmark and Norway announced that they'd be launching joint drone reconnaissance operations in the region, with the MQ-4C Triton among the models being considered.

A report last year for the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that Northrop Grumman's long-range MQ-4C Triton was among the few Western-made drones capable of operating effectively in Arctic conditions.

But they're designed for high altitude surveillance, and would be attractive targets for Russia, it said.

Norway is also set to open a drone surveillance base in Andøya, the hub of its military in the region, The Barents Observer reported.

And some Scandinavian countries are seeking to develop their own drones capable of withstanding Arctic conditions.

"Russia has been working on Arctic-rated drones for longer than the US, but Sweden and Finland have been working on this too," Falco said.

Quantity, not just quality

In its 2024 report, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that, when it comes to the Arctic, drone numbers will count as much as they have in Ukraine, and that Western countries should prioritize scale, not just quality.

"Rather than opting for fewer numbers of expensive drones, which do not capture the military-technological advantages of evolving drone capabilities, the Arctic should choose instead to adopt many less-expensive variations," it suggested.

But, according to Falco, the US will have to work closely with its Arctic region allies if it wants to compete with Russia.

"We need to rely on these partners to be at parity in the Arctic domain," he said.

• India launched strikes into Pakistan earlier in the week, kicking off a new round of fighting.
• Pakistan said it responded with its Chinese-made fighter jets and shot down five Indian aircraft.
• The Indian aircraft have since been identified as French-made Rafales and Soviet-era fighters.

Nuclear powers India and Pakistan are clashing again, and there are claims of aircraft kills from air battles that sound like a hodgepodge of foreign-made fighters.

Pakistani officials said Thursday that the country had shot down five Indian fighter jets and a number of drones since India launched cross-border strikes earlier this week, kicking off a new round of fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Ishaq Dar, Pakistan's foreign minister, said the country's air force "engaged with the Indian fighter jets in self-defense" and shot down five aircraft and an undisclosed number of aerial drones.

Dar said Wednesday Pakistan used Chinese-made J-10C jets in its response to India's strikes the night before. He identified some of the Indian aircraft downed as the French-made Rafale fighters, according to the state-run national news agency.

The five aircraft said to have been shot down consisted of three Rafales and two Russian-designed fighter aircraft: a MiG-29 and a Su-30, per reports citing Pakistan's military.

That is quite the mix of fighter aircraft. Both countries fly jet designs from all around the world, and conflict has the potential to bring jets into battle that might otherwise not engage one another.

Pakistan, for instance, flies Chinese-made J-10s, the joint Pakistani-Chinese J-17 fighter, American-made F-16s, and French Mirages, while India operates the French-made Rafales and Mirages, Russian-origin Su-30s, MiG-29s, and MiG-21, UK Jaguars, and a homemade fighter jet known as the Tejas.

The J-10C Pakistan touted, as it claimed victories over the Indian Air Force, is a single-engine, multi-role aircraft manufactured by the Chinese aerospace conglomerate Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group. Pakistan received its first batch of these fighter jets — upgraded versions of the original J-10 — in 2022. They can carry bombs, air-to-air missiles, and rockets.

The Rafale is a twin-engine multi-mission fighter aircraft manufactured by the French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. India is one of only a small number of countries that operate these fighter jets and fields 36 of them. Recently it signed a deal to purchase more than two dozen more for its navy.

And then the Mikoyan MiG-29 and much larger Sukhoi Su-30 are twin-engine fighter aircraft developed in the Soviet Union by Russian aerospace firms. These two jets are operated by dozens of countries around the world and can carry out various missions.

The MiG-29, introduced in the early 1980s, was built to counter the American-made F-15 and F-16. Meanwhile, the Su-30 entered service in the following decade. These aircraft represent a major component of India's air power. The country fields hundreds of them.

Business Insider could not independently verify Pakistan's claims that it shot down the five aircraft. India's defense ministry and its embassy in the US did not respond to queries about the aerial engagements.

Information from these clashes can be unreliable. During the 2019 conflict, India claimed that one of its MiG-21 pilots defeated a Pakistani pilot flying an F-16. The US later called that into question.

Reuters reported that US officials confirmed that in the latest clashes, Chinese-made J-10s were used to down at least two Indian aircraft.

Not just planes, but drones too

Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, a spokesperson for the Pakistani Army, said Thursday that Islamabad had destroyed a dozen of India's Harop drones — loitering munitions, or one-way attack drones, packed with explosives. The weapons, which can linger over a target area before striking, are made by Israel Aerospace Industries.

Chaudhry, during a press conference, displayed images purporting to show debris from the downed Indian drones. "The armed forces are on a high degree of alert, and neutralizing them as we speak," he said.

India on Tuesday night said that it launched strikes against nine "terrorist infrastructure sites" in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, signaling the start of a new military operation — Operation Sindoor — that Islamabad has labeled an act of war.

The latest round of fighting, which has sent tensions soaring between the two rivals, follows a massacre last month in Indian-administered Kashmir, which left 26 people dead. India has historically accused its neighbor of supporting cross-border terror, though Pakistan has denied involvement in the attack.

India's defense ministry initially said that no Pakistani military facilities were hit, "reflecting India's calibrated and non-escalatory approach." But on Thursday, New Delhi said that it had targeted air defense systems and radars across the border.

Pakistani leadership vowed to respond to the Indian strikes, and the country has already hit back at India with mortars, artillery shells, drones, and missiles, New Delhi said. Several people have been killed in both countries over the past two days.

• Cheap drones have been used to destroy expensive systems like tanks in the Ukraine war.
• US military leaders are watching this trend closely and evaluating the threat for future conflicts.
• The Army secretary said it's not worth it to buy expensive weapons if they're vulnerable to drones.

The US can't keep building and buying expensive weapons that are vulnerable to drones that are produced at a fraction of the cost, the Army secretary said.

"We keep creating and purchasing these exquisite machines that very cheap drones can take out," Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll said during an episode of the "War on the Rocks" podcast that aired Tuesday.

"If the number is even remotely right, that Russia has manufactured 1 million drones in the last 12 months, that just makes us have to rethink the cost of what we're buying," he continued.

"We are the wealthiest nation, perhaps in the history of the world, but even we can't sustain a couple-million-dollar piece of equipment that can be taken out with an $800 drone and munition," he said.

Driscoll was responding to a question about whether the US military was walking away from the Robotic Combat Vehicle. He said that while the concept was valuable, the cost ratio didn't work.

The US military has been watching the war in Ukraine, where cheap drones packed with explosives are damaging or destroying expensive combat equipment like tanks, other armored vehicles, air defenses, and even warships, highlighting the vulnerability of larger and more prized weapons that are insufficiently defended.

The proliferation of cheap drones — some of which cost as little as a few hundred dollars — has become a growing concern for the US military as it readies for the possibility of a large-scale confrontation between NATO and Russia in Europe or a fight with China in the Pacific.

Moscow said it produced 1.5 million drones last year. A Ukrainian tank commander called Russian drones a major threat to his American-made M1 Abrams tank, which costs about $10 million.

Ukraine has outfitted its Abrams tanks and other systems, including European-made tanks and American-made armored fighting vehicles, with additional armor to help protect the expensive equipment from drones, but it's not a perfect solution.

Armored vehicle losses in this war have been high. Ukraine, for example, has lost more than 4,400 armored vehicles, while Russia has lost more than 12,600, according to Oryx, an open-source intelligence site that tracks military equipment losses on both sides.

And drones aren't just a threat to land assets. Ukrainian naval drones packed with explosives have wreaked havoc on Russia's Black Sea Fleet. These drones have even been upgraded to launch missiles. Ukraine said one managed to take down two of Russia's $50 million Su-30 fighter jets over the weekend.

• The Marine Corps is developing drone policies to distinguish between friendly and enemy drones.
• Efforts include creating an Attack Drone Team and UAS advisory councils for feedback.
• UAS identification challenges are highlighted by experiences in Ukraine's cluttered battlespace.

The Marine Corps is learning to fight with uncrewed aerial systems, and there's a lot to figure out. One Marine Corps leader said the potential for confusion on cluttered future battlefields "haunts" his dreams.

"Knowing what's good guys versus bad guys, knowing what to kill and not to kill," that sort of thing "haunts my dreams," Col. Sean Hoewing, the director of the Marine Corps' Capabilities Development Directorate's Aviation Combat Element, said last week at the big annual Modern Day Marine expo in Washington, DC.

The push to develop counter-UAS capabilities coincides with the service's efforts to develop its offensive capabilities.

The service has established a new Attack Drone Team and aims to replicate it across the Corps, using competition to mimic the stressors of combat. It's also set up UAS advisory councils to accelerate feedback from troops on the ground to senior leaders in the Pentagon who can field requests to industry partners.

Drones are quickly becoming a top priority, especially as the world watches what how drone warfare unfolds in Ukraine.

In future fights, Marines will need to be able to identify not only friendly or enemy UAS systems with lethal payloads but also systems like logistics resupply drones and maybe even casualty evacuation drones, which could create new concerns around the identification of medical UAS systems for wounded enemy combatants, which are protected by the Geneva Conventions.

Friendly and enemy identification of drones has become increasingly important in Ukraine, where one Ukrainian drone operator previously told Business Insider that it is not uncommon for troops to end up jamming everything nearby in a "cluttered battlespace."

Combat footage from the front lines in Ukraine has highlighted the confusion that can quickly arise from drones. In the chaos of battle, it can be difficult to figure out which quadcopter is friendly and which may soon be dropping grenades overhead.

Col. Scott Cuomo, the commander of the service's Weapons Training Battalion and the new Attack Drone Team, envisions a not-so-distant future for Marines in which UAS identification demands will force troops to drill down on strict airspace deconfliction procedures.

"Someone's going to do the fires coordination, just like we've always done," Cuomo said, referring to the practices of ensuring strikes from aircraft, artillery, or other weapons can occur without harming friendly forces. "So there's a lot of just building on what we've done in the past," he said.

What might that approach include in practice? When a Marine sends out a UAS with a payload on it, "you're going to tell someone that you're going to do that," Cuomo said, referring to detailed fires coordination between infantry units and their command centers.

Friend-or-foe identification is far from the only challenge of battlefield drone operations. Both Ukraine and Russia have been forced to grapple with tremendous drone losses, not only to one-way attacks but also to electronic warfare.

A reluctance to squander too many UAS systems may add more complexity to UAS identification concerns. "We can't necessarily take the approach that it's okay if we lose 40% of our stuff," Hoewing added. "That's not going to work for the Marine Corps."

Loss of equipment is anathema to Marines, who treat equipment accountability as an immovable tenet. That may contradict the lessons from Ukraine though, where cheap drones are considered expendable and used as individual rounds of ammunition.

There is a lot to sort out, but the only way Marines will be able to iron out the pains of such complicated UAS oversight will be more sets and reps, Cuomo said. "Just give it to the Marines, and then figure out the training."

• Ukraine said it shot down fighter jets with naval drones for the "first time in history."
• Ukraine's military intelligence service said it downed two Russian Su-30s in the Black Sea on Friday.
• Ukraine has developed a fleet of naval drones to counter Russia's navy.

Ukraine said it shot down two Russian fighter jets with naval drones, describing it as the "first time in history" the technology had destroyed a crewed combat aircraft.

A Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (GUR) special operations unit said on Saturday that it destroyed a Russian Su-30 fighter jet in the Black Sea on Friday by using a missile launched from a naval drone.

Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the GUR, then told The War Zone that a second Russian Su-30 was also downed by the missiles from the naval drones in the attack. The Su-30 fighter jets are estimated to cost about $50 million per unit.

The GUR shared a video of an aircraft in the sky that appears to have been shot from below, which shows an aircraft-shaped object breaking apart and falling.

The GUR said the strike was carried out by a missile launched from a Magura naval drone platform, which can carry missiles that the Ukrainian Main Directorate of Intelligence previously said would target Russian aircraft.

Budanov told The War Zone that Ukraine used the Magura-7 version of the naval drone and that it used AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared-guided air-to-air missiles.

The Su-30 is a multirole fighter that can do both air-to-air and air-to-ground attacks. Ukraine has destroyed others in its fight back against Russia's invasion.

The GUR said the jet on Friday "was engulfed in flames mid-air before crashing into the sea" after the attack, which was done in coordination with the Security Service of Ukraine and the Defence Forces of Ukraine.

It said the strike happened near Russia's Novorossiysk port in Western Russia. Russia previously moved many of its vessels there from Sevastopol, the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea fleet in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Crimea, as Ukraine damaged so many of its vessels there with attacks.

Ukraine has also launched attacks on Novorossiysk.

Ukraine has developed a fleet of naval drones that have menaced Russia's navy.

They, along with Ukraine's other weaponry, have allowed Ukraine to largely neutralize Russia's Black Sea Fleet without having any real navy of its own.

The naval drones have also caused problems for Russia in the skies. Ukraine said in December that it destroyed a Russian helicopter with a naval drone for the first time, saying a Magura was used in that attack too.

A spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Defence did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment.

• Performance Drone Works is an Alabama-based company that's pushing domestic-made drones forward.
• PDW leadership spoke with BI about production process, challenges, and what technologies are needed.
• The company was born out of a televised drone racing league. It now makes military drones.

More and more American drone companies are sprouting up as the tech takes over civilian and military sectors in a big way.

The Ukraine war has been an eye-opener about what drones can do in battle, and the Pentagon is leaning hard into the technology, as a planned Army overhaul shows.

With increased demand comes new companies eager to become suppliers. But Performance Drone Works, or PDW, wasn't born from a sudden interest in uncrewed warfare. Instead, it came from the colorful quadcopters and flight courses of the televised Drone Racing League, where talented pilots would fly drones through complex obstacle courses at speeds up to 90 mph.

From drone racing to battlefield tech

PDW is an offshoot of the famed international racing league. The company set out six years ago to address the lack of US suppliers developing cutting-edge robotics, Ryan Gury, the company's CEO and co-founder, told Business Insider. All of the drones flown by the league's pilots are the same and made by DRL, and that is where Gury came in: drone design.

Now PDW is making drones for the military.

The priority is to make drones, like their flagship C100, and other technologies, "that are small and tactical and to be deployed by single units," Gury said. "That's our thesis."

The C100 is a lightweight quadcopter that's designed to fit in a rucksack and can fly over 70 minutes, up to 40mph, with a 10-pound payload. The latter can be adjusted based on mission requirements. PDW is also planning to debut a new, smaller, first-person-view drone this summer. The company announced over $15 million in C100 contracts and sales to the US Army in December.

For many years, combat drones were large, fixed-wing aircraft costing millions, but there's a growing interest in small, inexpensive uncrewed aerial systems that can be employed down to the squad level, that warfighters could carry on their person, even in their pockets. The Ukraine war has shown that small UAS platforms can do battlefield surveillance, strike missions, bombing runs, and more.

Key to advancing that aim and fielding drones en masse are affordable systems at scale, close and flexible relationships with the Department of Defense, and a reliable domestic supply chain that is not dependent on foreign components.

A booming business

PDW is based in Huntsville, Alabama, where the rate of production on C100s has exceeded expectations. They've outgrown the factory they thought would last a few years in just eight or nine months.

"A year ago, at our board, we were mulling, 'Can we produce 30 a month?'" retired Gen. Tony Thomas of US Special Operations Command, now chairman of the PDW Board, said. Now the company is making 70 a month, and soon, it'll double that. For their upcoming FPV product, Gury said he expects numbers exceeding the present production figures.

Testing occurs throughout PDW's drone-making process, Dylan Hamm, PDW's chief technology officer who built small drones while serving as a Navy SEAL, told BI. Testing involves everything from making sure the drone has the desired payload capacity to evaluating weather, temperature, altitude, terrain, and countermeasure conditions.

"We test our drones every day," he said. "Whether it's at the flight test facility qualifying that they meet our design targets or actually taking them out to field events."

Drone-making requires flexibility given the rapidly evolving battlespace. There's much being learned from the electronic warfare countermeasure systems and the quick pace of innovation occurring in Ukraine. "When you have these systems in these complex operating environments that are constantly changing, we have to be ready to adapt," Hamm said.

Designing systems for new fights

PDW has US veterans across its workforce and leadership — 20% and 63%, respectively. In conversations with BI, PDW staff who had served talked about the role of the drone in combat, the need to work closely with individual warfighters on these systems, and the quickened pace of adaptation and evolution. 

Veterans bring a unique perspective to defense companies, but on cutting-edge systems, they have to look beyond their own experiences.

"If we're designing the system for the wars that Dylan and I fought a couple of years ago, we're behind," PDW's Chief Revenue Officer Chuck McGraw, another former SEAL, told BI.

The kind of fighting that has been seen in Ukraine has shown that the future of war is going to be very different from past conflicts. Matt Higgins, one of PDW's co-founders, said that "the fact that you can take a $1,000 drone and take out an $8 million tank is an asymmetrical advantage that the world will never unsee."

Drones and other UAS like loitering munitions have changed the game. The question now isn't what can these systems do but whether the US has the industrial capacity to keep up.

PDW's C100 is engineered and manufactured entirely in the US and doesn't contain any Chinese-made parts; the majority of the drone's parts come from American companies. The US military can't just grab DJI drones off the shelf, and that complicates procurement. Military leadership is eager to strengthen domestic industry for drones but also for other weapons, ammunition, and assets.

Gury and Thomas highlighted the growing number of new companies in the defense industry, specifically ones that are working on drones, artificial intelligence and autonomous capabilities, and other future warfare elements. Thomas said it's a really frenzied environment, a time when there's "a real animus" to move away from legacy systems that may not win the next war and really "get onto transformational capabilities."

• Autonomous systems like Anduril drones aim to make aerial combat faster and cheaper.
• The US military uses uncrewed systems to support operations like ISR missions and precision strikes.
• Anduril is redefining defense tech with AI-guided systems like the Fury aircraft and the Bolt drone.

Drones have evolved far beyond their decades-old roles as battlefield surveillance tools into thinking machines capable of rivaling experienced pilots.

With demand for military drones surging, defense tech startups like Anduril Industries are racing to build the next generation of autonomous weapons systems designed for combat across land, air, and sea, even as concerns over their use grow.

Founded by Oculus VR headset creator Palmer Luckey in 2017, the California-based defense company has developed a range of modular, AI-driven systems for the US military, beating out Anduril's competitors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Here's a look at Anduril's products that include cutting-edge weapon systems and surveillance drones, from the Air Force's first uncrewed fighter jet, the Anduril Fury, to the Anduril Bolt, a compact drone that can fit in a backpack.

Fury

Initially developed by US-based aerospace company Blue Force Technologies, the Fury autonomous air vehicle (AAV) was acquired by Anduril in 2023.

The Fury is propelled by a single turbofan engine and reaches speeds of over 650 miles per hour. Depending on its payload, it can fly up to 50,000 feet high and tolerate thrusts of up to nine times the force of gravity — sustained Gs that could knock out a pilot.

The modular autonomous aircraft features Anduril's Lattice software, a digital command-and-control center that uses AI to integrate data from drones, cameras, sensors, and radar systems. It can likely carry missiles to strike other aircraft, but the full range of its capabilities hasn't been publicly revealed.

The US Air Force marked the Fury as one of its first uncrewed fighter jets as part of the Next-Generation Air Dominance program, which aims to develop a sixth-generation fighter whose human pilot assigns mission tasks to their uncrewed wingmates.

Designated as the YFQ-44A, the Fury is set to operate as "loyal wingmen," or collaborative combat aircraft, alongside crewed F-22 Raptors and F-35 Lightning IIs, or autonomously by itself or in small groups.

Barracuda

Anduril's Barracuda is designed to act as a next-generation cruise missile, with a focus on affordability, adaptability, and rapid production.

There are three Barracuda variants intended to launch from various platforms.

The smallest model, the Barracuda-100, is designed for missions requiring agility, endurance, and compact payloads. With a range of over 120 nautical miles, it can accommodate a 40-pound payload and potentially launch from rotary- or fixed-wing aircraft, ground vehicles, and boats.

The mid-size variant, the Barracuda-250, can strike aerial targets over 200 nautical miles away. It is designed to launch from bombers and fighter jets or from surface vessels.

The Barracuda-500, the largest model, has a range of over 500 nautical miles and can carry payloads of more than 100 pounds. It can launch from fighters like the F-15E, F-18, and F-16, or it can be palletized in the Rapid Dragon missile system and deployed from a C-17 or C-130. The Barracuda-500 is part of a US Air Force and Defense Innovation Unit project developing future autonomous aerial vehicles.

Ghost

The Ghost is a portable, uncrewed aircraft system that can be assembled in less than two minutes and fit in a rifle or tactical soft case.

Designed for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, the UAS features can autonomously detect and track objects while navigating the terrain.

The 37-pound baseline variant of the Ghost drone can operate for nearly an hour with a range of 7.5 miles. The larger Ghost-X model can fly for up to 75 minutes and 15.5 miles and accommodate payloads of 20 pounds.

Roadrunner

The Roadrunner is a reusable AAV designed for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL). Powered by twin turbojet engines, it can reach high subsonic speeds with high G-force maneuverability.

Featuring advanced AI-driven technology, a single operator can control several Roadrunners simultaneously and integrate with air defense radars and sensors.

The Roadrunner-M, the explosive interceptor variant, is purpose-built for ground-based air defense and can detect and target various aerial threats. The Roadrunners are kept and maintained in the Nest, an automated portable hangar that can launch the drone in seconds.

Anduril has secured multiple U.S. military contracts aligned with the Pentagon's push for AI-driven defense capabilities. In October 2024, The Defense Department awarded a nearly $250 million contract to Anduril for drone defense, including over 500 Roadrunner-M interceptors and Pulsar electronic warfare systems.

The Trump administration has turned to defense tech startups like Anduril to fulfill its military priorities and ambitions, including a space-based missile defense system dubbed the Golden Dome.

During a White House event on American investment on April 30, President Donald Trump featured Anduril's Roadrunner drone while highlighting the defense firm's plans to build a massive drone plant in Ohio.

Altius

Anduril's air systems also include the Altius, autonomous attack drones capable of kinetic and electronic warfare launched from a tube from the ground, air, or sea.

The Altius UAS can deliver coordinated strikes as loitering munitions and it can also intercept and analyze signals for intelligence, identify targets from a distance with long-range cameras and sensors, or act as a decoy to draw away enemy fire.

There are several variants of the Altius, which stands for Agile-Launched, Tactically-Integrated Unmanned System.

Designed for ISR missions, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence, the Altius-600 can operate for up to four hours and travel about 273 miles. The enhanced variant, the Altius-700, can accommodate larger payloads of up to 65 pounds, operate for up to five hours, and travel over 300 miles.

Anduril also developed two variants of its attack drones. The Altius-600M can be equipped with a high-explosive warhead weighing about six pounds for kinetic strikes. With a range of 100 miles and endurance of a little over an hour, the Altius-700M can carry a 33-pound warhead, like an AGM-114 Hellfire missile.

Hundreds of Altius attack drones have been supplied to Ukraine as part of the US military aid package in April 2023.

Bolt

In October 2024, Anduril unveiled the Bolt, an AI-guided compact drone that can fit in a backpack. The system's base configuration is programmed to detect and identify targets for ISR and search-and-rescue missions.

The customizable attack drone can operate for over 40 minutes and cover about 12 miles.

The munition variant, the Bolt-M, can autonomously track and strike targets like light vehicles and trenches with "lethal precision," the company said in a press release. The Bolt-M's onboard AI software simplifies controls for human operators, who only need to know "where to look, what to follow, how to engage, and when to strike."

Integrating AI in warfare

Anduril has long demonstrated its commitment to integrating AI into military systems — and it show no signs of slowing down, collaborating with companies like Rheinmetall, Microsoft, and OpenAI to develop advanced autonomous defense capabilities.

Anduril has announced efforts to develop an AI-enabled electromagnetic warfare system called Pulsar and plans to build a hyperscale drone manufacturing facility in Columbus, Ohio, called Arsenal-1. The massive 5-million-square-foot plant is expected to produce tens of thousands of military systems a year.

Drones controlled via radio frequency are vulnerable to electronic jamming. Autonomy is one promising workaround — where the drone executes an assigned task such as scouting for enemy air defenses — but it comes with its own technical and ethical issues.

The growing use of AI in warfare has sparked sharp debate over its safety, risk, and ethics, particularly surrounding autonomous lethal decision-making.

Luckey, however, argued that AI integration into the defense industry is inevitable and advocated for continued military partnerships with tech companies. The Anduril founder emphasized the importance of the US maintaining an edge in the AI arms race, especially against adversaries like China.

"We've been in this world of systems that act out our will autonomously for decades," he said during a TED Talk in April 2025. "And so the point I would make to people is that you're not asking to not open Pandora's box; you're asking to shove it back in and close it again."

• The UK just unveiled a new drone designed to operate alongside F-35s and Typhoons.
• The drone, called StormShroud, will jam enemy radars so the fighter jets can operate more freely.
• It comes as the UK and others, including the US, look to integrate drones with crewed aircraft.

The British Royal Air Force unveiled a new drone on Friday that's designed to jam enemy radars in combat to clear a path for F-35 and Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets to operate freely.

The RAF wrote in a statement that the new drone, called StormShroud, is now in operational service and is the first in a new family of autonomous systems that will fight alongside crewed platforms.

It said StormShroud will support the UK's F-35B and Typhoon pilots "by blinding enemy radars, which increases the survivability and operational effectiveness of our crewed aircraft." It added that uncrewed systems are not new to the UK and this drone was made by taking lessons from the war in Ukraine and other conflicts.

Among the aircraft the drone can support, the F-35B is a fifth-generation stealth aircraft made by US defense contractor Lockheed Martin; the UK operates them from the Royal Navy's Queen Elizabeth-class carriers. And the Eurofighter Typhoon is a fourth-generation multi-role fighter manufactured by a consortium of European companies.

The RAF said the delivery of the StormShroud "marks a significant step" in efforts to blend autonomous systems into front-line operations.

The drone's platform — the Tekever AR3 — is made in two locations in the UK and will carry Leonardo UK's BriteStorm electronic warfare payload that can jam the radars of enemy air defenses, creating openings for crewed aircraft to engage in combat missions.

StormShroud is part of the UK's Autonomous Collaborative Platforms strategy. This effort is centered on having crewed and autonomous systems operating together to reduce pilot risk in hostile environments by relying on flexible and cost-effective systems, like drones.

The US has a similar initiative to the UK's ACP called the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. The US has tested "loyal wingman" drones alongside its F-35s, and there is an expectation that the coming sixth-gen F-47 will fly with CCAs.

"This is a seminal moment for the RAF to maintain our advantage in Air Combat and national security," Air Chief Marshal Rich Knighton, the chief of the air staff, said in a statement.

Knighton said the RAF is committed to pursuing cutting-edge technologies that can enhance the force's "lethality and survivability in a more contested and dangerous world," explaining that "autonomous collaborative platforms will revolutionize how we conduct a range of missions, from intelligence gathering to strike and logistical support."

The RAF said conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East show that drones have majorly changed modern warfare, both for offensive and defensive missions.

• US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memo on sweeping changes for the Army.
• The focus on future warfare includes AI, drones, ammunition stockpiles, and force restructures.
• The Army and larger military under President Trump have been about the ideas of lethality and readiness.

Less crewed helicopters, more cheap drone swarms. That's just one of the directives listed in a memo from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on sweeping changes to the US Army.

Hegseth envisions a future Army in which drone swarms capable of overwhelming enemies replace crewed helicopters and augment the remainder of that fighting force. There's much more to the plan though.

The defense secretary's memo addressed to Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll was shared on Thursday and included strategic transformations, force restructuring, and cuts to certain programs and systems. The plan represents one of the largest Army overhauls since the Cold War, and the initiative is expected to cost billions.

Some planned changes, like plans to give every division 1,000 drones within the next two years, have clear timelines and immediate impacts. Others, such as "modernizing language training programs to improve mission effectiveness," are vague.

Drones, ammunition, and the Indo-Pacific

Hegseth has directed Driscoll to "transform the Army now for future warfare."

Within the next two years, every Army division will have uncrewed aerial systems. Counter-UAS systems, too, should be integrated into maneuver platoons by then and maneuver companies by the following year, 2027.

By 2027, the Army should also be fielding long-range missiles that can strike moving land and maritime targets. Some Army systems that could fit that bill include the surface-to-surface Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), the Mid-Range Capability Typhon system, and the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon.

The service should also achieve dominance over the electromagnetic spectrum and air-littoral spaces, both of which have been deemed critical subdomains for future wars, and artificial intelligence-driven command and control at the Army's theater, corps, and division headquarters.

Among the directives is a call to "modernize the organic industrial base to generate the ammunition stockpiles necessary to sustain national defense during wartime," with a goal of full operations by 2028. Driscoll recently told BI that strengthening the defense industrial base and deepening the Army's magazine was a priority for him, especially when thinking about a possible war with China, an Indo-Pacific power and top rival.

In line with that thinking, the memo directs the Army to strengthen its forward presence in the Indo-Pacific by expanding the Army's caches of warfighting equipment, conducting military exercises with allies and partners, and rotating deployments in the region. US President Donald Trump, Hegseth, Driscoll, and other officials have all identified countering China as a top priority.

"The President gave us a clear mission: achieve peace through strength," Hegseth wrote in the memo. "To achieve this, the US Army must prioritize defending our homeland and deterring China in the Indo-Pacific region."

The emphasis on heavily transforming the Army ahead of 2027 raises questions about the motivations. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has directed the Chinese People's Liberation Army to be ready to execute an invasion of Taiwan by 2027. Though that goal does not mean action is guaranteed, US military officials have used China's deadline as a readiness guide.

'A leaner, more lethal force'

Hegseth and others in the Trump administration have highlighted their intentions to cut what they deem as wasteful spending in the Pentagon. The Army memo goes into that but still leaves some questions unanswered.

The defense secretary is instructing the Army to substantially rework its force structure, which includes merging headquarters to synchronize kinetic and non-kinetic fires, implementing space-based capabilities, and adopting uncrewed systems.

As already noted, Hegseth's memo also includes a plan to "reduce and restructure crewed attack helicopter formations and augment with inexpensive drone swarms capable of overwhelming adversaries." It also includes plans to "divest outdated formations, including select armor and aviation units" across the Army.

Major reforms are intended for some Army headquarters, including the merging of Army Futures Command and Doctrine Command into one and Forces Command and US Army North and South into a single entity focused on homeland defense and Western allies.

Additionally, some weapons systems and capabilities deemed obsolete are being axed, including certain crewed aircraft programs, ground vehicles like the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or Humvee, and outdated UAVs. Driscoll's staff recently told BI that some legacy systems could be on the chopping block in pursuit of lethality.

Workforce reduction is also a priority and falls in line with larger priorities from Hegseth and Trump. Information in the memo on this is sparse. It calls on the Army to "optimize force structure to achieve maximum readiness" and "prioritize merit and skill needed for today's battlefield across the uniform and civilian workforce."

Revisions to civilian hiring and firing policies and cuts to general officer positions are planned.

When asked about Hegseth's priority for a "learner, more lethal force" and what that means for the workforce, Col. David Butler, communications adviser to Chief of Staff of the Army, told BI that the likely intention is to make cuts to "staff and bureaucracies," not maneuver or warfighting formations.

Butler said Army leadership believes cutting those areas will lighten the organizational structure and "better serve the warfighter."

Conversations around a "leaner" Army have been a major topic in recent weeks. Earlier this month, sources told Military.com the Army was quietly considering a reduction of up to 90,000 active-duty troops. The Army labeled the story "wrong," writing on X that it was "building more combat power while reducing staff and overhead."

Hard decisions for the Army

Many of these changes indicate sweeping plans and reforms for the Army. Talking to Fox News on Friday, Driscoll said that while "these are hard decisions," especially ones around legacy systems and weapons reform. That said, "the old way of doing war with no longer suffice," he explained.

The Army secretary said he and the service have been "empowered to go make the hard decisions and the hard changes to reallocate our dollars to best position our soldiers to be the most lethal that they can be."

• Ukraine has launched a program that gives points to soldiers who kill Russians or destroy their tanks.
• The Ukrainian units can use the points to buy drones and other equipment from an online store.
• The store is like "Amazon" but with military technology, a top Ukrainian official said this week.

Ukraine has launched a program that awards points to soldiers who verifiably kill Russian troops or destroy their equipment. They can then use these rewards to purchase drones and other weapons from an online "Amazon"-style marketplace.

Mykhailo Fedorov, who serves as Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, said this week that his government has launched the Brave1 Market, a website that showcases military technology from the defense industry, including drones, robots, and electronic warfare devices, that are available for purchase.

Ukrainian military units can use their funds to purchase equipment directly from the website, which functions "like Amazon," Fedorov wrote on Telegram on Monday. However, instead of selling common items, the Brave1 Market offers "innovations."

Military units can also use reward points for purchases. Units are awarded points for killing enemy soldiers or destroying Russian military equipment, so long as they confirm the attack with drone footage and upload it to a military situational awareness network.

Once the kill is verified, units receive "ePoints;" the amount depends on the target. Eliminating a Russian soldier reportedly awards six points, while destroying a tank earns 40. These points can be exchanged for military equipment through the Brave1 Market.

"The marketplace will significantly simplify the interaction between developers and the military," Fedorov said, per a translation of his remarks on Telegram. He said that military units can choose the right tech in just a few clicks, compare different equipment, contact the manufacturer, and make a deal directly.

Fedorov said military units are often unaware of certain equipment available to them, so the new site is intended to offer more transparency. He said that over 1,000 different types of equipment, including various drones, ground robots, guns, and electronic warfare devices, are already on the Brave1 Market.

The catalog is extensive — units can even buy cameras, batteries, engines, and satellite communication devices. Much of the material is readily available for viewing on the site, but some sensitive information can only be accessed by certain users.

Alex Eine, the section commander of a drone unit in Ukraine's Separate Presidential Brigade, told Business Insider that the points system works best for soldiers who work with small first-person-view (FPV) or bomber drones on the front lines. More frequent missions mean a greater chance of earning points.

Eine's unit, known in English as the "Birds of Fury," uses a drone called the Backfire to strike Russian positions behind the front lines. The drone is available on the Brave1 Market for around $60,000 for a pack of three; its value in points is unclear.

A popular bomber drone called "Baba Yaga" costs around 43 points, according to Politico, which cited Fedorov's comments at a recent tech conference in Kyiv. The Ukrainian government will pay for the drones ordered with points and deliver them to the units.

Fedorov said one unit, Magyar's Birds, had already accumulated over 16,000 points, enough to buy hundreds of drones. The unit's front-line drone operations are well known. The Brave1 Market website lists the unit as the top earner of combat points in March.

Other high-earning units include the 59th Separate Assault Brigade, part of the Unmanned Systems Forces, and the 3rd Separate Special Purpose Regiment, part of the Special Operations Forces.

• Ukrainian long-range drones struck a defense manufacturing site deep inside Russia.
• A security source told BI that the attack caused damage at the Murom Instrument-Making Plant.
• It's Ukraine's latest deep strike as it continues to target Russia's military and energy sites.

Ukraine attacked a defense manufacturing site deep inside Russia on Tuesday night with long-range drones, starting a fire and causing damage at the facility, a security source told Business Insider.

A source in the Security Service of Ukraine said that the agency launched drones at the Murom Instrument-Making Plant, around 180 miles east of Moscow in the Vladimir region. The facility produces ammunition ignition devices and parts for Russia's navy and military aviation.

The SBU source said the attack caused five explosions at the plant and triggered a fire, which was said to have damaged two buildings at the facility. Local video footage and imagery appeared to show the fire.

Alexander Avdeev, the governor of the Vladimir region, said that a "major fire" set a warehouse ablaze at a plant in Murom. He said there were no casualties, and dozens of first responders were able to extinguish the fire.

Later, in a Telegram post, Avdeev said that several drones had been taken down by Russian electronic warfare. One of the drones that fell caused the fire at the warehouse, he said, reporting that two buildings were left damaged by the attack.

Meanwhile, Russia's defense ministry said that it intercepted three Ukrainian drones over the Vladimir region on Tuesday night. Kyiv has not publicly commented on the attack. BI could not independently confirm the details of the incident.

The Murom plant, which is on Ukrainian and European sanctions lists, plays "a significant role" in supporting Russia's war machine, the security source explained, per a translation of their remarks shared with BI. They said "the SBU continues to work effectively for legitimate military purposes on the territory of the Russian Federation."

The attack marks Ukraine's latest deep strike into Russia. Kyiv has used domestically produced long-range drones and missiles to hit military and energy sites, including ammunition storage facilities, weapons production factories, airfields, and oil terminals.

The latest incident marks another setback for Russia's military in the Vladimir region. Last week, a large ammunition depot in the area caught fire and exploded.